Chapter four
Beaten
Kate awoke the next day for some reason a smile on her face for no reason. She dressed simply in casual clothes and walked down to the common room to see who else was around as she seemed to have been the last girl in her dorm to have woken up at the late hour of twelve. On coming out on the bottom stairs she could tell there was something wrong as James was sitting miserably at one on the studying tables as if his favourite dog has just died
"Hey James, what's wrong?" Kate asked sitting across from him. He looked up at her and with a shocked look suddenly put on a fake smile.
"Nothing much, just marauders business." James said smiling again to try and convince her it was nothing. She knew it was something though and gave him a sceptical look.
"Don't give me that Potter, I can tell something is up." Kate replied smiling kinfly at him to let him know he could tell her.
"I just don't know whether I should tell you. It's about Sirius." James said looking torn.
"What's he gone and done now?" Kate said rolling her eyes at the mention of the boy.
"No, nothing like that, its family stuff. He had to go away in the middle of the night. His uncle died, and he was pretty much Sirius' only link to his family since he got kicked out and Sirius had to go for the funeral." James said looking sad.
"Oh right," Kate said feeling immediately guilty for her assumption that Sirius had done something stupid to cause James' weird mood. "Poor Sirius."
"Yeah, he had to go back to his family house, and let me tell you, his mother is not exactly easy going on Sirius. I'm worried that something will happen, his family are into some pretty dark stuff." James added.
"I'm sure they love him really, every family has problems right," Kate added, thinking of her own father and the times he had made her life a misery.
"No, his are different. He hasn't lived with them for a while now as he's been living with my family. He shouldn't have gone back." James said. "I tried to convince him last night but he got really angry with me and we ended up arguing." Kate nodded with what he said and realised James obviously was really worried.
"Well I'm sure Dumbledore wouldn't have let Sirius go home if he knew it would put him in danger," Kate said.
"Dumbledore doesn't know he's gone. Sirius took the tunnel then floo'd from the pub in town to his house." James said looking more and more worried as the conversation went on. Kate looked distressed about this also. But was interrupted by an owl tapping on the window by James' head. He opened the window and the owl hopped in and dropped the letter in James' lap then perched on a chair nearby. James unrolled the scroll quickly and scanned it, his eyes squinted in confusion then in realisation jumped out of his chair.
"It's Sirius, he's back and in the tunnel. We need to go!" James said sprinting for the common room door.
"What's happened?" Kate shouted after him, and without a reply she jumped up and ran after him.
"James! What's going on?" She cried catching up with him. James didn't reply though and just tore his way round the bends and turns of the corridors leading to the witch's hump statue before practically throwing himself down the tunnel with Kate in quick succession.
At the bottom he scanned around calling Sirius' name but due to complete darkness saw nothing. He grabbed his wand and muttered "Lumos" and started searching. He ran down the tunnel and as the end became near a small lump seemed to be at the end when the exit was. It wasn't moving.
"Sirius!" James shouted speeding up and running towards the dark shape. Kate realising it was Sirius also sped up with James, lighting her wand so not to trip on anything before getting to him.
Sirius was in a bad way. He was barely unrecognisable in a heap on the floor, his face covered by his hands he looked helpless, though seemed to still be breathing heavily which James sighed in relief at.
"Padfoot! Can you hear me?" James said dropping to his knee's by his best friend and touching his shoulder gently. Sirius' head shot up in pain at James touching him and he cried out. At his uncovering of his face Kate gasped in shock. His face was covered in bruises and cuts so deep blood was still seeping from them. His eye's were closed practically shut from bruising and his lip were battered and cut so badly he could barely move them to cry out.
"Sirius! What happened?" Kate said kneeling down and trying to help him sit up. Sirius managed to lift his shoulders up far enough to sit up a little but as he did so his robes peaked open to show a blood stained white shirt beneath. Kate tried not to gasp again so not to worsen the situation. Sirius didn't seem able to speak properly so James motioned to Kate to help him to pick Sirius up.
"Mate, we're going to help you to get up then we need to walk back to the castle okay? We need to get you some help." James said, Sirius tried to say something but it just turned into a wince and he gave up. They slowly picked him up, and his legs gave way straight away. So he basically had to put his full weight on the two and let them drag him to the tunnel's opening.
"Go up, and I will levitate him up after you," James ordered. Kate nodded and climbed the tunnel and searched around to make sure no one was around to see them. With no one being around she full opened the hatch and Sirius floated perfectly out with James behind. Once out they resumed carrying him through the corridors, trying to avoid any students or teachers seeing them. Once they reached the turn towards the nurses office and took a left instead of a right Kate spoke out.
"James we need to take him to the nurse, he needs help badly." Kate said her back hurting under Sirius' weight.
"No we can't! He snuck out of school, if we take him how do we explain this without explaining how he snuck out. Sirius wouldn't want that. And he can't get kicked out!" James said desperately trying to make Kate understand.
"He could die James! He's bleeding so much!" Kate said, the distress she felt for him getting to her.
"You know medical stuff though, Lily told me you want to be a healer. Can't you care for him?" James asked desparately.
"I don't know! I don't know enough to help him now… he's too badly hurt." Kate said looking down at Sirius who had passed out and they were now fully carrying to wherever James was taking him. They reached a corridor where Kate had never been before and a door appeared out of nowhere in front of them.
"What the…" Kate was interrupted by voices coming towards them though and they dragged Sirius' body in the door and closed it quickly behind them.
"This is the room of requirement. It helps us out when we're in need of somewhere secret." James said looking around. A bed appeared in the corner and he motioned them to take Sirius over to it. They lay him down and Sirius suddenly awoke and cried out in pain and grabbed his stomach.
"Sirius mate, we're back now, you're safe." James said. Sirius just moaned in agony and James' eyes looked frantic.
"Look we need to see what's wrong with him, but I can't do this alone." Kate said. "Get Remus and Lily. They'll be able to help." James nodded.
"You'll look after him?" James said looking doubtful. Kate hesitated.
"Yes, I will. Now go." She muttered before turning back to Sirius in his sorry state.
"Sirius I need to find out where you're bleeding from. So I'm going to take your shirt off." Kate said blushing a bit even though it was such a serious situation. Sirius nodded and tried to sit up, wincing in agony the whole time. She helped him slip his robes off and then his shirt one sleeve at a time. Each revealing deep cuts and scars all over them. She noticed though that some of the scars were old and therefore this wasn't the first time this had happened. She eased off the shirt to reveal his stomach covered in bruises and lacerations as if he had been whipped violently. She recognised the curse used to do this and got out her wand to try and stop the bleeding from the most serious wounds. She tapped gently on his stomach and silently said spells to ease the pain and bruising whilst ceasing the blood flow. Sirius had passed out again from the pain, so as she did it she did not hear him moaning in pain anymore. James seemed to be taking a while to come back so she tried to see to some more wounds. His stomach was a little better with some of the main wounds tended to as best she could. Lily was better with charms like that so she could deal with it when she got there. Until then she got some warm water and a cloth which appeared from no where it seemed and dabbed at this face trying to clean the blood away. He opened his eyes at her doing this and looked up. When he saw her he looked surprised. He tried to speak but found it difficult.
"Sshh, don't hurt yourself." Kate said quietly in an unusually caring voice. He nodded and she carried on dabbing away blood. As she did this James burst back through the door with Lily and Remus in toe. They both looked distressed and on entering and seeing Sirius their feelings were obviously not appeased.
"Padfoot, what the hell happened?" Remus said rushing over. Sirius just looked up and shrugged as best he could before looking away in, what seemed to be, shame.
"Oh Sirius." Lily just said as she rushed over to him pulling her her sleeves and getting to work healing his wounds. James commented to Kate on doing a good job on cleaning him up so far and she just smiled weakly whilst looking down at Lily working wonders on healing him. Remus whispered a spell and ran his wand over Sirius body, the tip glowed blue over his stomach and his left ankle so a minute later Remus appeared a second later holding some skele-grow.
"I found this in a cupboard over there. I think Sirius has some broken ribs and maybe a broken or fractured ankle so he'll need this." Remus said pouring a cup of it and giving it to Lily. She gently poured it into his mouth, his gagging at the vile taste but swallowing it after a while.
Kate looked around and it amazed her at how his friends cared for Sirius. He obviously did something right to deserve such loyalty and caring from his friends. Lily did an amazing job at healing his wounds and eventually he was able to speak a little. James had been pacing the whole time he had been in the room and once Sirius was able to talk James hurried over to ask questions.
"What the hell happened Pad'?" James said. Sirius face was a lot more healed. One of his black eyes remained a little having been too bad to heal completely but his lips were healed enough for his to speak. Sirius coughed the first few attempts and then managed to push out some words.
"It was…. My good old family." He first said, Kate and Lily gasped but the boys seemed unchanged at the news. "After the funeral the will of my Uncle…" he coughed again, "Cyrus was read… the old nutter left me everything. My family went crazy, my mother started the cursing, gave me this beauty," he said motioning to his black eye.
"They're bastards mate, you don't need them." James said, his eyes ablaze with fury for his friend.
"Its not them… its just Reggie. He's getting dragged in to their extremist crazyness," Sirius said his face dropping even more at the mention of his younger brother who had been caught up in the black family curse of being power hungry and joined forces with a new dark leader who was slowly rising called lord voldemort.
"You need to worry about yourself at this point Sirius. You got pretty badly beaten up. They were trying to kill you." Lily said quietly pushing back Sirius' scruffy hair off his face like a mother would.
"I got away before that didn't I." Sirius said with a little bit of anger in his voice.
"Who knows what they would have done if you hadn't though Pad'." James said. Sirius just looked at James annoyed.
"Can we just stop talking about it? I'll be fine thanks to your help. I appreciate it but I just need to be alone. I bet I can walk now." Sirius said sitting up and trying to move his legs round. He winced in pain but continued to try and get up. He put his weight on his left leg and almost buckled over, Remus went forward to help his friend but Sirius waved him off and continued to try and walk. He managed to put more weight on his left that his right and he limped towards the door whilst everyone watched, no one wanting to argue knowing how stubborn he was, but always desperately wanting to stop him from hurting himself more. He walked out the door holding on to the wall for balance and left leaving.
His friends looked at each other with worry, not saying anything but they were all obviously sick with worry for their friend.